The City of Ottawa held an open house on Tuesday
to allow members of the public to provide
their input in regards to addressing the increasing
level of aggressive driving along Viseneau
Drive and Barrington Street in the Orléans
community of Chateauneuf. Fred Sherwn/Photo

Residents
living along Barrington Street and Viseneau Drive in the
Orléans community of Chateaneuf have been dealing
with a gradual increase in traffic and agressive driving
behaviour ever since Innes Road started to become a commercial
corridor in 2004.

But
it's only been in the last four years with the opening
of the Empire Theatre Complex and The Athletic Club directly
across from the southern access point to Viseneau that
the situation has become a lot worse.

On
Tuesday, residents living on the two streets were able
to have their first say in finding ways to curb the aggressive
driving behaviour that has made the situation increasingly
unsafe,

Sylvie
Lamarre has been living at the corner of Viseneau and
Barrington for the last 10 years. She's noticed a significant
increase in both the level of traffic and the amount of
drivers ignoring the stop sign at the intersection.

"They
sort of roll through the stop sign or ignore it altogether,"
says Lamarre. "It's a very dangerous situation, especially
for the kids using the park."

High
volume and aggresive drivers are also an issue at the
coner of Barrington and Beausejour where Guy Deslaurier
lives. He would like to see a heightened police presence
at the intersection.

"They
could hand out tickets to ever second car, it's that bad,"
says Deslauriers, who would also like to see the city
extend the no parking zone on the east side of Barrington
all the way to Teslin Court.

According
to long-time resident Ian Dyck, the situation is equally
bad at the Innes Road end of Viseneau, where cars turning
northbound onto the street from Innes make pulling out
of his driveway a crap shoot.

"I'm
the second house on the east side of the street so you
may be about to back out and there's no cars coming, and
in the couple of seconds when you actually back out onto
the streets a car is already on top of you -- and it's
constant sometimes," said Dyck.

"Trying
to go southbund on Viseneau is even worse because you
can have 15-20 cars backed up with the light."

A
number of the 50 or so residents who came to the traffic
study open house at the Orléans branch of the Ottawa
Public Library on Tuesday, suggested that the city should
open the south end of Boyer Street to create a third access
point to the local community along with Viseneau and Belcourt
futher to the east.

But
according to City of Ottawa transportation planner Brian
Tweedie, the scope of the study is limited to traffic
calming measures such as speed bumps and street narrowing.
The study team doesn't have the authority to recommend
possible street closures of openings.

A
similar study that was recently completed on Belcourt
resulted in a recommendation to implement five speed bumps
on the street between Innes Road and Jeanne. A recommendation
to narrow the street at two points was ultimately rejected
after concerns were raised by area cyclists that it would
force them on to the sidewalk.

The
Viseneau/Barrington study team will take the public's
input from Tuesday's open house and formulate a number
of mitigation measures which will likely include a combination
of speed bumps and street narrowing, A second public consultation
will be held after the recommendations are released in
the fall.